


Coming Home

by convolutings



Series: Things I Wish Were Said [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Emotions Behind the Scenes, Gen, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, One Shot, POV Steve Rogers, POV Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Tony Stark Has A Heart, honestly wrote this for myself but hope you enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 19:16:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convolutings/pseuds/convolutings
Summary: Set right after the end of Infinity War. What it might have felt like from Tony and Steve's point of view right up to Tony coming homeTony is lost, he doesn’t even know who is left back home. What if there was no one left?Steve just lost Bucky and Sam, he couldn’t lose Tony too. He needed him to come back.





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot that is part of a series but can be read as a stand-alone
> 
> I do not own any of the Marvel characters nor the plot it belongs to Marvel Studios. This is just the emotions I thought they might have been feeling written down

**Tony POV:**

Tony sat there on his knees staring at his hands as the dust fell through his fingers. The dust that was once Peter Parker. Peter Parker. Spider-Man. A kid way too good for this world; with the morals and strength to match Cap. But unlike Cap, Peter still had the innocence of a kid that made everything around him shine brighter. Which is why as Tony looked around everything seemed darker. Or maybe it was because there was no longer a moon as it had just been dropped on him.

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter because suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. Well rather, a blue metal hand. And then he remembered that he wasn’t alone.

"Get up.” She said.

Nebula, that was her name.

“Get up.” She said again. “We have to get off this planet.”

All Tony could do was look up over his shoulder at her, still dazed from the events that had just transpired.

“I’m sorry about the boy, but you are not the only one who lost someone.” She looked down and met his eyes. “If it happened here it happened everywhere.” And she was right. “So get up. I don’t know where to go, but we have to fix this ship and go somewhere.” She said.

Tony stood up. “Okay. I have a team. Well, I don't actually know if we are a team, or who is even still alive.” Because it was true. It had been more than two years since they had been a team. After Ultron, and then the Accords, The Avengers were no more. Some were fugitives, others had gone solo, and he hadn’t talked to most of them in forever. But they were the only people he could think of who could help.

So that’s what he told her. “But whoever is still there, I know they can help. So let’s fix up that ship, and we’ll see if we can make it home.” 

“And where is home?” She asked.

“Earth. We’re going to Earth.”

\---------- 

It had been 22 days. They were able to fix up the ship, but not well enough apparently. One jump away is what Nebula said. So close. But close didn’t matter. It was day 22, they were out of air, an engine had just died, and they were too far from home.

All Tony could do now was sit there and contemplate everything he had done in his life. All the mistakes, and all the apologies he wished he could make. He didn’t realize, but at some point he ended up closing his eyes, letting the exhaustion and oxygen deprivation take over.

\----------

**Steve POV:**

It had been 22 days and Steve and the team had gone back to the Avengers Compound. Could they even call it that anymore? Without the Avengers, what was it? But they were there anyway. They had left Wakanda to allow them to grieve their King and Princess, as well as all the soldiers they lost from the fight even before The Snap.

That’s what they were calling it. The Snap.

Pepper had graciously let them back in, old feuds meant nothing at this point. It’s also why they didn’t worry about being in the U.S. Because how could you be a fugitive when half of all living creatures in the universe were just wiped out?

Steve stood staring at the screens in front of him. On one hologram were pictures rotating of who they knew they had lost. And on a separate one, a video was being played in a loop. It showed that Doctor wizard being dragged onto the Alien Space Circle, with Iron Man and Spider-Man trailing close behind and it disappearing into space. A big question mark was written next to it.

They couldn’t find anything on the satellites, there was no ship or any indication of something returning to Earth. He hoped that Tony was okay and on his way back. He didn’t know what he would do if he wasn’t. These past two years had been rough. Being on the run had been hard enough. But not being on speaking terms with someone he called his friend, and his team being broken up, made it that much harder. He needed to talk to him. Steve didn’t know where to start, or what to say, even though he had thought about it almost every day for the last two years. All he knew was that he needed to talk to Tony, or even see him, or even just know he was alive. Yeah. That would be enough. To know he was alive.

Steve had just lost the two people closest to him. The love of his life, Bucky, whom he had just gotten back. And his best friend. He couldn’t lose Tony too. He might have been the Captain of the team, but Steve knew that Tony was the glue. 

He looked around at who was left. Bruce, Natasha, Thor, Rhody, and the talking raccoon, Rocket, he had called himself. Clint had joined them after he lost his entire family while he wasn’t even looking. Pepper was upstairs with Happy, fretting about Tony and trying to figure out what to do regarding Stark Industries and how they could help. And that was it.

The first couple of days were chaos. Trying to figure out the magnitude of what had just happened. What was going on in the world, and what should they do next. They were in shock. No one knew how to grieve those they had lost. Were they dead? Were they lost? Who was in charge? No one knew. It took about a week for the shock to wear off and the crying to begin. But now it had been three weeks. Now they were just trying to find any semblance of an order to things, trying to get Tony back, just trying to breathe.

Then a blonde woman showed up with a pager in hand. Fury had apparently called her. She had fire in her hands, and strength in her core, if her steadiness while an axe flew next to her head, told him anything. She was a protector too. She had heard about Tony from Fury, and when they told her the situation she was already up in the air on her way out to find him. Her lack of fear and her confidence gave him hope. Maybe she could find him. So he looked up at the stars and prayed.

\----------

**Tony POV:**

Tony thought he made it to heaven. Why else would a bright light of fire be in front of him? But he wasn’t in heaven. He was being saved.

It might have been a second, or an hour or days later that the ship landed on the grass of The Compound. Nebula took his arm and put it around her shoulder and walked him down the tarmac onto the ground. People were walking toward him. He was too scared to look at who. What if Pepper didn’t make it? Or Rhody? Or Happy? Hell, he wanted his whole team to be okay. Yes, his team. Steve included. Because no matter their issues, he was their Captain.

Then suddenly arms were around him, strawberry blonde hair in his face, and that familiar scent of home around him. Pepper. She was okay. He held on tighter and just looked at her and her beautiful face. God, he was so happy she was here. He looked up and saw who else was there, it was the whole original team plus Rhody and Happy, and he took a breath. They were okay.

But then he looked down and an overwhelming feeling of guilt flooded him almost crushing his chest as he remembered.

He lost the kid. Not everyone was okay. He lost the kid.

Steve walked up to him and they acknowledged each other, seeing each other for the first time in two years. He had a beard, it made him look old and tired. And his usual flashy suit of red, white and blue was black, dark blue and grey. Fitting, he thought.

“I couldn’t stop him,” he said.

“Neither could I,” Steve responded.

He didn’t even realize that Nebula had let go of him to go talk to, was that a raccoon?

Pepper had taken hold of one side of him at some point, he was so out of it he didn’t even notice. Steve took his other arm and helped him inside.

\----------

**Steve POV:**

Steve saw the bright light that he now knew was Carol carrying a ship on her back and landing in the grass outside The Compound. He let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. She found him. Well, he hoped it was him. Please god, let him be on the ship.

“That’s my team's ship!” Rocket exclaimed.

It was the first time he heard him speak, he had been quiet, holding onto a twig that he was told was all that was left of a tree, no his son, called Groot. So he guessed that that was what he had been waiting for, the rest of his team.

They all walked outside to greet the ship as the tarmac opened. And out walked a blue woman made entirely of metal, carrying a tired, but very much alive Tony. He could almost cry as he walked towards him, a little quicker now. Then he saw strawberry blonde hair whip past him to get to Tony. While he stood there letting Pepper hold him he realized that no one else came off. It was just Tony and the blue woman. Rocket must have realized that too because he ran up to her.

“Where are they? Where is my team?!”

“I’m sorry.” Nebula said. “They're gone.” He watched her hold Rocket as he broke down for the first time since The Snap.

Pepper took hold of one of Tony’s arms and she moved aside to make way for, him, he guessed. Tony looked worn out as if he would crumble at any second. They just stared at each other. Realizing the magnitude of seeing each other for the first time after two years. And the weight of their reunion being in these circumstances.

“I couldn’t stop him,” Tony said.

“Neither could I.” He took hold of Tony's other arm and led him inside.


End file.
